This article collects famous quotes made by members of, or about, the Inquisition, sorted in alphabetical order.

N.B. Inquisitors utter statements about other factions all the time; such quotes should preferably be collected in other articles (e.g. a quote made by an Inquisitor about the Eldar should be collected in the Eldar Quotes article).

Contents

Attributed

Inquisition Records

Speaker

Quote

Source

The First Book of Indoctrinations

The weak will always be led by the strong. Where the strong see purpose and act, the weak follow; where the strong cry out against fate, the weak bow their heads and succumb. There are many who are weak; and many are their temptations. Despise the weak for they shall flock to the call of the Daemon and the Renegade. Pity them not and scorn their cries of innocence - it is better that one hundred innocently fall before the wrath of the Emperor than one kneels before the Daemon.

The Daemon has many forms. You must know them all. You must tell the Daemon from his disguise and root him out from the hidden places. Trust no-one. trust not even yourself. It is better to die in vain than to live an abomination.The zealous martyr is praised for his valour: the craven and the unready are justly abhorred.

Transcription of suppressed texts, from the archives of the Gethsemene Reclusium

Know this adept, for your journey has been long and you are to be trusted as few will ever be. Psykers represent Humanity's future, the ideal creature into which mankind will evolve; a more powerful, more intelligent and more capable life form. As yet this race is weak, its members lacking the mental strength needed to face the dangers of the psychic universe. Were the new race of psykers permitted to develop free and unprotected, the whole of Humanity would soon be destroyed. We few who are privy to this truth have guarded it selflessly for nigh on four millennia, since the end of the great schism from which our order was born. It is our sole concern, for the very future of our race depends upon us, and us alone.

So great has been the calamitousness of these times, and such the inveterate malice of the heretics, that there has been nothing ever so clear in our statement of faith, nothing so surely settled, which they, at the instigation of the enemy of the human race, have not defiled by some sort of error. For which cause the holy Inquisition hath made it Its especial care to condemn and anathematise the principal errors of the heretics of our time, and to deliver and teach the true and Imperial doctrine; even as It has condemned, anathematised, and decreed.

Who are you to second-guess the will of the Emperor? His plans are for Him and Him alone to know. It is enough for us to know that his grand designs for the galaxy unfold as he has foreseen, and the colossal arrogance displayed by those who claim to act in his name is both dangerous and tantamount to heresy. – on the arriving Imperial forces at Medusa V

There's not nearly enough. Whatever foul work the Arch-enemy does here must be stopped at all costs, but do not fool yourself Governor; this world will die. It just remains to be seen how many of us it takes with it. – following the Armageddon Schism

C

I'm sure most of the men in the galaxy are familiar with the sinking feeling that accompanies the words "Do you think you could do me a little favour, darling?", but when the woman asking the question is an inquisitor it's even less wise than usual to say "No".

There are those amongst our Ordo who say that I seek advancement for my own purposes, and they are correct. My purpose is to destroy the daemonic and if I must rise to command an entire sector to do so, then so be it. I am a servant of the Emperor and only those who consort with Warp-spawn need fear my ambition.

The rewards more than outweigh the risks should we succeed. Imagine it! The Emperor reborn and walking amongst his people as a living god. Who can say such a thing is wrong? - from Inquisitorial Report TH/21/36: The Incunabla Incident

You are not free whose liberty is won by the rigour of other, more righteous souls. You are merely protected. Your freedom is parasitic, you suck the honorable man dry and offer nothing in return. You who have enjoyed freedom, who have done nothing to earn it, your time has come. This time you will stand alone and fight for yourselves. Now you will pay for your freedom in the currency of honest toil and human blood. - address to the Council of Ryanti

E

I am forty-two standard years old, in my prime by Imperial standards, young by those of the Inquisition. All my life, I have had a reputation for being cold, unfeeling. Some have called me heartless, ruthless, even cruel. I am not. I am not beyond emotional response or compassion. But I possess - and my masters count this as perhaps my paramount virtue - a singular force of will. Throughout my career it has served me well to draw on this facility and steel myself, unflinching, at all that this wretched galaxy can throw at me. To feel pain or fear or grief is to allow myself a luxury I cannot afford.

We are at War with forces too terrible to comprehend. We cannot afford mercy for any of its victims too weak to take the correct course. Mercy destroys us; it weakens us and saps our resolve. Put aside all such thoughts. They are not worthy of Inquisitors in the service of Our Emperor. Praise His name for in our resolve we only reflect his purpose of will.

I carry with me an Inquisitorial Seal. It is a small, unassuming object contained in a neat box of Pluvian obsidian. It is a modest thing. Relatively plain, adorned with a single motif and a simple motto. Yet with this little object I can sign the death warrant of an entire world and consign a billion souls to Oblivion.

G

Your daily work brings you closer and closer to the warp, increases your understanding of orderless powers. Gradually, without noticing it, even the most puritanical and rod-stiff inquisitor becomes seduced... The first step is the knowledge. An inquisitor must understand the basic traits of Chaos in order to fight it. In a few years, he knows more about the warp than most untutored cultists. Then the second step: the moment he breaks the rules and allows some aspect of Chaos to survive or remain so that he can study it and learn from it... The third step... the third step is the line itself. When the inquisitor becomes a radical. When he chooses to use Chaos against Chaos. When he employs the agencies of the warp. When he asks the heretical for help... So... are you going to ask me to help you?

Look upon this hammer I hold before me, for it is far more than a weapon. It is a symbol of the Imperial justice that smites the diabolic enemies of the Imperium wherever they are found, just as I. Though it has banished even a mighty Greater Daemon to the hell from which it was spawned, it remains true and pure, just as I. Furthermore, it is a symbol of my order and my office, of the authority granted to me by the divine will of the Emperor. By that authority, I am commanding you and your entire regiment to obey me without question or hesitation. Advance, or it will not be daemonic blood that stains my hammer this day. - addressing Colonel Molian of the 223rd Gudrunrite Rifles

The Despoiler comes forth once again, and he cannot be stopped by force of arms alone. It is his will that the stars be stained red with the blood of all who oppose him. An infinite horde of fiends, mutants and cacodaemons obey his command to devour Cadia alive. But he will not stop there.

If our faith in the Emperor and our force of arms prove strong, the forces of Chaos can be driven back into hell. If we are found wanting, Humanity will fall.

You must face the truth squarely and without flinching from duty. Our Enemies are mortal no longer. Mercy for such as they is a chimera, self-deception is its only ally. Dedicate this weapon, given unto your hand at the behest of the Emperor, to their destruction. Regard its function as your only duty: you live only to bring cleansing fire. Take up your rod and staff, your armour and psycannon, and go forth.

L

Look around you! We must tear down the rusty and ancient cage that we have built for ourselves and replace it with a shining tower that can once more touch the stars. Without evolution. we are shorn of our greatest strength. - at the Oulan Symposium

Eradicate Chaos? Hah! One might as well try to exterminate one's own shadow. Do not presume to enforce a simpleton's philosophy upon the Emperor's Inquisition. Bury your head if you must, but my eyes are open yet. – excerpt from the sixth trial of Inquisitor Lichtenstein

You are Astartes indeed, and that will never alter. But you are a Death Guard no longer. You are a ghost, a figure that stands between light and dark, trapped amid the grey. And I have need of such a man.-to Battle-Captain Garro

Admonitions on the Duties of the Witch Finder, Inquisitor Malich (suppressed M38)

Though Mankind is at the brink of this great apotheosis, you must be ever vigilant for the stillborn harbingers of this change. Where you seek the pure and strong, there too will you find the impure and weak. Where you find but one worthy of life, you will also find a million twisted, deformed monstrosities for whom death by your hand is a mercy. Therefore, look first for the mutant, for he may never hide his sin from you, and in his midst there will be revealed to you that which you seek. But be ever vigilant, for even should you find one with the gift, only one in a thousand psykers will be strong enough to resist the perils of the Empyrean and be allowed to live.

Foul sorcery shall not lay low the servants of the Emperor! The power of the Emperor compels thee and the radiant light of faith abjures thee! Cast thyself before the Emperor's mercy that he might absolve you of your sins, even as he drains you of your very soul! – to to a rogue psyker on Epsilon Regalis

Heresy is like a tree, its roots lie in the darkness whilst its leaves wave in the sun and to those who suspect nought, it has an attractive and pleasing appearance. Truly, you can prune away its branches, or even cut the tree to the ground, but it will grow up again ever the stronger and ever more comely. Yet all awhile the root grows thick and black, gnawing at the bitter soil, drawing its nourishment from the darkness, and growing even greater and more deeply entrenched.Such is the nature of heresy, and this is why it is so hard to destroy, for it must be eradicated leaf, branch, trunk and root. It must be exorcised utterly or it will return all the stronger, time and time again, until it is too great to destroy. Then we are doomed. - Prelude to "The Abominatus"

Now the past must unveil one of its darkest secrets, the story of the Plague of Unbelief and its most heinous vector Bucharis the Apostate Cardinal of Gathalamor. Never has the Imperium endured such a crisis of faith, not since the dark days of the Horus Heresy itself. – "The Abominatus"

O

If it weren't for the ripe grain-crop waving in the breeze, there'd be very little evidence this place was ever a farm at all. A few dozen scattered bodies and a cluster of smoking barns; that's all there is.

The tracks of more than a dozen fighting vehicles show the size of the force that hit this place, and the depth of the impressions on their way out are so deep that the riddle of where all the machinery has gone is easily solved. Whoever did this took the lot. Aside from the slaughter, that's the most ineresting part. Everything has gone, traction engines, grain filters. If it's metal of any type, it's been taken. Those vehicles must have been dangerously overloaded.

It doesn't take a Xenologist to figure out who did this. Not many creatures are degenerate enough to daub on a wall in human blood.

Sergeant Granth wants to pursue these monstrosities, to gauge their strength and retaliate if possible. I have agreed. Please await further reports.

Gregor Eisenhorn, in fealty to the God-Emperor, our undying lord, and by the grace of the Golden Throne, in the name of the Ordo Malleus and the Inquisition, I call thee diabolis, and in the testimony of thy crimes, I submit this carta. May imperial justice account in all balance. The Emperor protects.

S

The creatures of the Warp have but one trait with which you need concern yourself - their undying contempt for the Emperor. It is your task to quell the rebellion they preach, and the only sure way is to destroy them utterly.

T

You ask why we must cleanse the xenos. I will tell you. The filth of the alien and the witch must be exterminated to preserve the purity of the Human race, lest we degenerate into abomination. - at the Conclave of Vera

V

Even if you could take us both, and I sincerely doubt that, I've lost count of the number of people I've met who thought they could outrun the Inquisition. But you might as well give it a try if you really want to. After all, there's a first time for everything.-on Gravalax

So there it is: unimaginably ancient xenos artefact somewhere on the planet in the hands of a renegade, the hive fleet poised above our heads ready to rip this world apart, hidden 'stealer broods everywhere making an early start on their behalf, and now a bloody Chaos cult crawling out of the woodwork just in case we were getting bored. Welcome to my world, Ciaphas.-on Periremunda

Some Inquisitors believe the Emperor’s work is best done by charging around the place like a grox in a ceramic emporium, leaving a trail of carnage and destruction in their wake, while others prefer not to let the enemies of all that’s good and holy get clean away by making it blindingly obvious they’re coming for them. - commenting on Ciaphas Cain's speculation that she enjoys elaborate disguises and cover stories for their own sake rather than for stealth

Curses! Just when you've finally managed to bring the whole world under your evil influence some pathetic little Inquisitor goes whining off to the Adeptus Terra about rogue psykers and daemonic possession. I mean, do I look possessed? Well, do I? DO I??? - during the Purging of Korsk II

Would you have Mankind grow old and withered, running too fat on the fruits of remembered glory whilst its enemies tear at its frail extremities? I think not. With each trial, we become stronger. My brethren and I will provide. - attributed